Today I’m going to start another regular monthly feature on this blog. It will be a collection of various items on the Foreign Legion that I come across during the month. These items will be shorter topics that may not warrant a full post. Things like odd pictures found on the net, miniatures, short articles, posts seen on other blogs or notable web sites of interest. On the last day of each month I’ll make a “hodgepodge” post of everything I’ve collected up. So now readers can look forward to the end of the month as well as the monthly pulp posting on the 15th.
For the month of August here is what caught my eye…
1. Thomas Gunn Miniatures Foreign Legion Figures. This U.K. based maker of fine quality 54mm scale figures has come out with a second set of Foreign Legion soldiers. This time you see some excellently sculpted khaki covered helmets and quite a bit of drama in the poses. I like the small details such as the eye-patch and the checkered scarf and the bandages. Their website has nice pictures of the full range if you are so inclined. These are high quality collectors grade figures–not to be bought for your 6 year old.
2. Le Shakko Wargame AAR. The folks in France of the Club Le Shakko (of the Renaissance & Culture war gaming elite in Sainte Genevieve des Bois in Essonne) has posted another AAR on a recent simulation concerning conflict at the pass of El Mokhtar between troops of the 1st Battalion of the infamous infanterie légère d’Afrique (AKA Le Joyeux) and a mixed bag of Bedouin bandits. It looks like this was lots of fun. Check out this walk through here.
3. Hat ETS Posts. I stop by the HaT forum (A Day at the Forum) on an infrequent basis. FYI this company has one of the most extensive lines of 1:72 scale plastic soldiers out there but for some reason they never released an original line of the French Foreign Legion–simply a re-issue of the old Airfix figures. The other day I noticed that there was lots of discussion (here and here) on French colonial figures–mainly a wish list of sets they would like to see HaT release in the future. Their website has another feature called Everything Toy Soldier (ETS). This is the gallery of pictures submitted by Hat fans of their painted miniatures and dioramas. Very inspirational stuff there. Some recent posts featured the Foreign Legion and some Spahi and Turco conversions. Link Link Link.
4. Conte Barzso Beau Geste Fort. I came across these pictures on eBay. They depict the really nice Beau Geste fort made as an accessory for the Conte Collectables line of Foreign Legion (Beau Geste Adventures of the Foreign Legion) 54mm figures. I’m a sucker for these forts and these are nice pictures so here they are. I wish I could afford something like this–I think it was going for $149.00 but it looked like nobody was bidding.
Mon Legionnaire 
Nice figs, I’d love to see them in 1/72
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Jack!
Are you aware of the Legionnaire series by Gordon Landsborough? http://tinyurl.com/kfrhypf
Paul Bishop
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No, I was not, but I am now. Thanks. I’m going to make sure to buy Legionnaire from Texas and add that to my reading list. I looked into the author –seems he also wrote westerns under the name of Mike M’Cracken and I’m pretty sure I have one of his books on the WWII North African campaign. I also see some other titles he has on the Legion Back To The Legion and The Spahis.
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I don’t know about Gordon Landsborough. McCracken wrote Legionnaire From Texas, The Spahis and If I recall, I think American Legionnaire was another in the series.I still have Back To The Legion. They came out as Panther paperbacks. (I had over a hundred.) Guys join up to find a Nazi war-criminal, General Sturmer, capture him, cart him across the Sahara, and try to bring him to justice.
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